Grass Valley, CA

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The Zees are in Grass Valley, CA!

We found a campsite on a lake and the Zees spent the day swimming.

Endless Hike

Hello World,

Yesterday me and my family took a hike in the Redwoods. At some places the trail was very narrow with these thorny bushes and ferns and poison oak on either side of us. Zack wore a T-shirt and shorts so now his legs are itchy from poison oak. When we were walking the trail never seemed to end, I think we actually walked a couple of miles. It had all these twists ands turns that didn't seem to go anywhere. Finally we decided to turn back because the trail kept going the opposite way of the road. And that is why the trail was endless.

Sincerely,

Zoe

Redwood Forest

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The Zees are at the Redwood Forest


We took a horrible route from Happy Camp to the Redwooods. It was unpaved for about 30 miles, and we probably averaged about 15 mph along that strip. The rest of the route was no picnic either. I can't even find the road on google maps. But we finally arrived and did plenty of hiking. We found a "drive through" tree, but of course Baxter wouldn't fit, so we all ran through it instead.

Priceless

#10 Classification Screen: $20.95
4 various gold pans: $28.00
pick-axe: $24.95
gloves: $13.00
sniffer bottle: $3.00
shovels and spades: $18.00




0.0072 troy ounces of gold: priceless.

Gold Mining Experience

We arrived at Happy Camp Friday afternoon. We got supplies at the 49ers headquarters and set off on our own to find some gold with a metal detector and other equipment. We found a couple snips of tin and some horseshoe nails that looked to be plenty old, but no gold. Saturday morning we all went to a three hour lecture on gold prospecting. The Zees stayed alert much better than anticipated. In the afternoon, we panned for about 4 hours. In my very last pan, I found a flake that probably weighed a milligram. None of the Zees found any, but Karen had about ten times as much as me. She also had about 10 guys helping her and probably seeding her sand with flakes.
Sunday we went out as a group of about 70 and worked as a team. We had 4 highbankers working, which are machines that basically pan for you, so the work was mostly moving boulders and shoveling up the most likely dirt and screening out the cobbles and pebbles. We used a #4 screen to throw out anything bigger than a quarter inch.
After 6 hours of 70 people and equipment working, we ending up with not quite two-thirds of an ounce of gold, which was split equally among the 70. If you ignore costs like equipment, travel, etc., that comes to a little under $2.00/hour.

I don't think I could have scripted a better "Stay in School" message.
Here's the gang waiting for their split:



Monday, we again went out on our own, using our new-found experience and knowledge. Karen found a likely looking spot on a map, and we camped nearby. The road was closed, so we had to bike about a mile to the location with all the equipment in backpacks. Then we had to wade across a fast moving stream with our hands together to keep from falling. Zack, Zeo and I each slipped once, but none of the girls did. This is where we found the scorpions, which diminished my enthusiasm for digging under rocks. We got skunked again. When we got back to where we could get an internet signal, it turned out that we missed the spot Karen wanted to go by about a quarter mile. Karen wanted to go back and try again, but she was outvoted 5-1. She sulked for about a half a day.

scorpian

Hello World! (again),

Today I went gold-mining at a place that we rode our bikes to get to. When my dad was digging behind a big rock for gold he actully found a

scorpian under the the rock! It was really small and didn't sting or kill anyone. Afterwords Zeo found a bigger one in an old rotten log.

Sincerly,

Zoe

paning

Hieveryoone! Thiis morning, we ate lotse of oatmeal. We had to because we were running late. Everyone had to get to the river for some paning. We took our bikes and there was this really steap hill, and I left about 3 fifteen foot skidmarks, and six or seven twenty-five footers. After that, we all took our pans and gold dectiors, and paned moss, dirt, and sand. we caame back emppty-handed. Now,we are on our way to southern callifornia.

mining for gold

today we went gold mining we split the gold

into 70 piceces i got the worst one but 6 people

traded with me man did i work hard.

we went in the river we held on some big rocks

bye bye!

more gold

Today was harder than I thought. We still had to shovel like heck. I worked like I never worked before. And THATS saying something. in total, I pullend in about ten bucks and sevendy-five cents. we could have pulled in a little more, but we had a pretty bad team leader, who didn't stop this guy who kept diging down and down way after he reached the maxamum gold that he was going to get, so we lost a lot of time there. We're going to go mining agian tommrrow. Cant wait!

Happy Camp, CA

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The Zees are in Happy Camp, CA

Happy Camp is a gold mining town in Northern California. We hooked up with a group of prospectors (called The New 49ers) and spent three days prospecting for gold. Some of them did it for a living, but most were less experienced. I think we were the only first-time prospectors. Beautiful country along the Klamath River, but no cell phone service, no internet, no nothing, so these posts are several days late. A lot of independent-minded people here.

gold!

Today we went paning for gold. It was better thain I expected. at first, I thought that we would get lots and lots of gold. but we only came back with a grain. A grain off 24 k. gold is worth just about $2.50. bearly anything compared to a ounce. an ounce is worth 450 grains. A total of $1250. But it was fun at least. Tommorrow, we are going to use a mashine to mine and it will make our lives much easier.

happy camp

today we went meadal decting
it wasin't very fun but
we went swiming after that
that was fun
now im in baxter
im sweating hot
i wonder will happen next!

Water falls

We went to a water fall it was cool!Zeo caught 1 snake and 5 crayfish.

The snake was awsome!!We also found a small pool thingy we called it a zayze pool thing!

And we all jumped off a clif thing!I jumed off the clif about 6 times.Then we went to Baxter thats our RV.

finding creatchers

we went to a water fall it was awesome!

I caught 5 crayfish and 1 snake!

I jumped of a cliff,

so did everyone else

we found a zazzy pool

with tadpools

clif jumping

Today we kids and our dad jumped off a cliif and landed in some 10 foot deep lake. There was a nice warter fall running down part of the clif, and a part of the ledge where you could climb up. Also, there were these little rocks sticking out to seem to mark hights. a small, a medium and a high. And a really high. I went on the high and the really high a cupple times. It was pretty fun. Next Zeo and I found a ton of crayfish, and then I saw a baby water king cobra and spent an hour trying to cath the snake. It finaly got close enough for Zeo to grab it by the neck, and then we put in a big bucket with our crayfish. Nothing hapend. We found a little pool that alreany had a ton of snails, tadppoles, and rocks, minows, and water spiders. Finaly, we are on our way to Callaforna!

Waterfall

Hello world!

Today me and my family went to this river place that was on the R.V. resort we were staying at. It was really cool and even had a waterfall

that my dad, Zack, and I climbed up the side of. At the top we found a little pool that had tadpoles, really fast snails, and what I think

was misceto larva. Then we jumped off the top of the waterfall. When we got to the shore Zeo found these really tiny crawfish in the water.

We caught some. Then we found a water-snake and caught that too. Then we put both the crawfish and snake in the little pool at the top of the

waterfall to create an Eco. system of tiny crawfish. But I don't know why we put the water-snake in there.

sincerly

Zoe

The fitness Hike.

Hello. A couple days ago I went on hike that ended up being more of a fitness test. about halfway there were these huge slugs. My cousin Monica said that she would lick one if I did. I was startled to find that she wanted to go first. I wanted to hold her back, but Jason naturally wanted to see his sister lick a slug, and pined me ageist a wall whale Monica licked the slug. All I can say is that I hold myself to my word, and I don't want to taste a slug again.

5 miles is a long way to hike with a bunch of teens. At some point I started yelling left, left, left, right, left. I got a lot of funny looks from random people. But hey, I'm on Summer vacation, I'm suppose to be having fun. We were exhausted by the end of the hike. and sat down for some ice cream.

the thrill of cayaking

Hey! Today I attempted fishing. Didn't work so well. So I went cayaking instead. My sister and I went all around this huge island and raced back. I gave her a 200-300 foot head start. I still beat her. It was harder than I thought. I had to pretend I was a robot that would never tire so I could paddle all the way back. I also had to sing to myself. That worked pretty good. The distance there was about 3 and 1/4 miles there. About 1/4 a mile around the island, and then 3 and 1/4 miles back. 7 and three quarter miles can tire your arms quickly. But it was one of the many thrills of my life. now we are on our way to California. We have to stop at a ton of these R.V. camps. But hey, they supply you with cable!

cayak race

Hello World!

Today was really fun.My sister, my dad, and I went out on a paddleboat. We floated around the campsite for a little bit then went back to the

dock.After that I got on a cayak and my little brother and sister and dad got on the paddleboat again and we tryed to go to this island in the

middle of the lake. My older brother got a cayak too.The island was about 3 miles away and only my brother and I made it.We went all the way

around it and then we raced back and Zack won.All in all we went about 8 miles

Sincerly,

Zoe

Paddllebote

Today I went on a padllebote.It was really fun!!!!First me and Zoey went on the paddllebote.

Then me and Zeo went on the paddllebote.And my Dad was with us too!

Florence, OR

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The Zees are in Florence, Oregon!

Arrived at night and cooked hot dogs and s'mores on the campfire. In the morning, another campfire and cherry pudgie pies for breakfast. Zack spent most of the time fishing, and all the Zs went boating around the lake. No fish, no capsizing.

total miles=675

Meet Baxter

I realized I never introduced Baxter, our RV. He's only 25' long, but he sleeps 6, so he's just big enough for us. Mercedes 3L 6-cylinder Diesel on a Dodge Sprinter Chassis. It is supposed to get 18 mpg after the break-in period. So far, it's getting around 15. Inside clearance is 6'8". Karen brought a ridiculous amount of stuff for the trip, and was able to store in all in the under-carriage hatches, so Baxter has plenty of storage.

Here we are with Baxter. Joe had to chop a few branches off of his trees so we could park in front of his house.

hiking

we went on a long hike for 2 hours

i saw a chimpmunk

we saw big slugs

and went thruow water fall.

we played a disc game

ps baxter is awesome!

Portland, OR

The Zees are at Uncle Joe's House!

Uncle Joe lives about a mile from downtown Portland, in the Buckman neighborhood. He's got 5 chickens, from which he gets about 3 eggs per day. Mighty tasty. It may seem a little odd to raise chickens in Portland, but my younger sister (professor at Phillip's Academy in Andover) also raises chickens. As does my older sister, who is a statistics professor at the University of Colorado. My younger brother (engineer at Ford in Dearborn, MI) used to raise chickens, but he lost a battle with the city council. So I guess it's me, who doesn't raise chickens, who is the outlier.

Joe lives in a great neighborhood, with a real sense of community. An indication of this is that he shares his extra eggs, and often gets vegetables from others' gardens. Another indication of the sense of community was that about an hour after waking up, I found myself carting wheelbarrows of cement for a neighbor's back patio.
The cement crew is featured above.

Sandy River

After Multnomah Falls, we all stopped at the Sandy River for a spell. Everyone except for one person went for a swim, but we couldn't stay in very long, for fear of hypothermia. The river was all snow melt, and only managed to get up to 51 degrees. Zack forgot he had his glasses on when he jumped in, and we had to call the search off when people started turning blue.

Multnomah Falls, OR

Met my brother at Multnomah Falls. I think this is the 2nd highest waterfall in the USA. We decided to try hiking the 3.2 mile loop, but ended up going at least 5 miles. Zayna got carried quite a bit by uncle Joe, but the rest of the Zees made it around on their own power. Wildlife sightings include a soaring bald eagle and plenty of giganto banana slugs. We also found some plants that looked like big clovers, but tasted like sour apples. Joe assured us they were safe to eat; no ill side effects yet. Zacky said he'd lick a particularly large banana slug if Monica (his cousin) did first. Unfortunately for Zacky, Monica seems to have an adventurous spirit, and a minute later they both had numb tongues, presumably from some slug secretion. Zeo decided to take a short cut on a switchback, and ended up in a crying heap at the bottom. If he does that a couple hundred more times, he might learn his lesson. The mistreated slug is shown below.

Mount Hood, OR

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The Zees are at Mount Hood

The first stop on the trip was Mount Hood. We called my brother Joe who lives in Portland (about an hour from Mount Hood) to see if he was going to be around, and he said he was going to be at a Father's Day picnic today at Wildwood Recreation Area. After checking into the RV site, we asked directions to Wildwood, and it turns out it is adjacent to the property, and there was a nice trail between the properties. So we hopped on our bikes and 20 minutes later met my brother and his family for some kickball and campfires. A fortuitous beginning.

Total miles=275

Hi this is Zayzy I am learning how to write Japanese, and I am very exited to go swiming!

Hello this is Zoe,
At the moment I am in Seattle Washington with my grandmother or obachan (which is grandmother in Japanese), my mom, my brother Zack, me, my other brother Zeo, and my sister Zayna. I think Zayna was named after some Indian princess and Zeo was namad after some guy in the Matrix only they changed the n to a z so all the kids in my imedeite (ugh I really don't think I spelled that corectly) family start with Z. Not much goes on 'round here and my younger brother Zeo is constantly pestering me to play soccer with him. Which is fine but not every second. Plus he's really good and I'm kinda rusty so sometimes I just jog around the neiborhood instead.

Seattle, Washington

Hi! it's Zack! I'm in Seattle right now with my grandmother. My dad was kind of joking about that whole ''girl thing''. I mean I only have a crush on one or two every year. My grandma kind of spoils me here. But the problem is she Quit her job and her money is running out, so I have to cut short my money spending.
Well, catch up with ya later!

Where are the Zees?

Karen and I decided to purchase an RV this summer. In May, I took Zayna and Zoey out to central California to test drive a few and pick one out. We made a little vacation out of it, and then had the RV shipped up to Lacey, Washington, which is where Karen's Mom lives. We'll start there, and then meander back to Illinois. We'll try to post each evening, but there are likely times where we'll be without internet for days on end, depending on how rough we end up roughing it. If we do miss days, we'll fill in the blanks when we can get a signal. Technically, the vacation has already started without me, as I dropped everyone off at the airport this morning and now they're all at Karen's Mom's. I have to work this week but will meet them out there Friday.

The Zees are in Lacey, WA

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The cast of characters is given below.

Zachary Taro

Zachary is now 12 and likes volleyball and girls. He has more success with volleyball. He has already won two beach tournaments at the U14 level. He is a little reticent about taking this trip, since he'll be away from his friends for so long.

(photo taken after a pick-up game on Grand Bahama Island)

Zoey Kyoko

Zoey is now 11. She likes volleyball, and is too sensible to like boys. She is the current 800 meter run record holder for the 6-school All City Field competition, beating the record set in 2007 by 0.21 seconds. Zoey is very excited about the trip, and wants to do a lot of rock climbing.

(photo taken morning of bring your daughter to work day)

Zeo Alexander Jiro

Zeo is now 8. He likes all sports and girls. He is already on his 3rd or 4th girlfriend. I can't keep track, but he's leaving a trail of broken hearts. Zeo seems pretty excited about this trip, in a nebulous fashion. He's in-between girls right now, so it's a good time for him.


(photo is after a particularly gnarly wave boogie-boarding in Costa Rica)

Zayna Alexa Kimiko

Zayna is now 7. She loves swimming. The only reason she is excited to go on this vacation is because I told here there would be lots of places to swim. She likes boys, and Karen caught her holding hands with a boy last year at a kindergarten field trip. Zayna is nothing but trouble.

(photo taken at North Avenue Beach next to the VBnetwork.com courts)